Political Scene

08.19.10

Can Dead Wrestlers Sway a Senate Race?

Democrats are already making trouble over Linda McMahon’s onscreen antics in the WWE. But what about the Connecticut Republican’s current and former employees who have died prematurely? Twenty-nine-year-old wrestler Lance McNaught died, apparently of heart failure, last week; Cade had been in drug rehabilitation. Deadspin’s pseudonymous “Masked Man” writes that such addictions are an “intrinsic part of modern professional wrestling—and that, so far, the WWE has been powerless to control them.” He adds, “Despite their cartoonish personas, pro wrestlers are human. And Linda McMahon and the WWE owe a debt to the performers, frail as they may be, who built their company and to those who continue to keep it afloat.”